Talopram

Abstract: The involvement of the norepinephrine transporter (NET) in the pathophysiology and treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), substance abuse, neurodegenerative disorders (e.g., Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD)) and depression has long been recognized. However, many of these important findings have resulted from studies in vitro using postmortem tissues; as of now, these results have never been verified via in vivo methods because brain imaging of NET in living systems has been hampered due to the lack of suitable radioligands. The fact that all three monoamine (dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin) transporters (DAT, NET and SERT) are involved in various neurological and psychiatric diseases further emphasizes the need to develop suitable NET ligands so that researchers will be able to probe the contributions of each monoamine transporter system to specific CNS disorders. In this review article, the design and biological evaluation of several radioligands for imaging the brain NET system with PET are discussed. Based on these characterization studies, including C-11 labeled desipramine (DMI), 2-hydroxydesipramine (HDMI), talopram, talsupram, nisoxetine (Nis), oxaprotiline (Oxap), lortalamine (Lort) and C-11 and F-18 derivatives of reboxetine (RB), methylreboxetine (MRB) and their individual (R, R) and (S, S) enantiomers, in conjunction with studies with radiolabeled 4-iodo-tomoxetine and 2-iodo-nisoxetine, we have identified the superiority of (S, S)-[ 11 C]MRB and the suitability of the MRB analogs as potential NET ligands for PET. In contrast, Nis, Oxap and Lort displayed high uptake in striatum (higher than thalamus). The use of these ligands is further limited by high non-specific binding and relatively low specific signal, as is characteristic of many earlier NET ligands. Thus, to our knowledge, (S, S)-[ 11 C]MRB remains by far the most promising NET ligand for PET studies.

Abstract: In previous studies we hypothesized that spontaneous termination of ventricular fibrillation (TVF) requires a high cardiac catecholamine level ([CA]) during VF. During VF, sympathetic activity is enhanced but in the majority of cases [CA] does not reach the level required for self-defibrillation, most likely due to their relatively high reuptake by sympathetic nerve terminals. One possibility of obtaining TVF is by elevation of the [CA] during VF, either by catecholamine intracoronary injection or by treatment with compounds that inhibit catecholamine reuptake. To examine this assumption, we studied the effect of VF on 3 closely related compounds: talopram, talsupram and citalopram, with norepinephrine uptake inhibition (IC50NE) of 2.9, 0.79 and 8800 and dopamine (DA) uptake inhibition (IC50DA) of 44000, 9300 and 41000, respectively, as well as 2 enantiomers of a cis-1-piperazino-3-phenylindan derivative (Lu20-037 and Lu20-036) with IC50NE of 2.5 and 910 and IC50DA of 2.3 and 1700, respectively. The results support our hypothesis relating the defibrillating effect of a compound to its IC50NE, while its inhibitory effect on DA uptake seems to conteract the NE effect.

Abstract: Background and purpose The 5-HT transporter (SERT) is a target for antidepressant drugs. SERT possesses two binding sites: the orthosteric (S1) binding site, which is the presumed target for current SERT inhibitors, and an allosteric (S2) site for which potential therapeutic effects are unknown. The antidepressant drug citalopram displays high-affinity S1 binding and low-affinity S2 binding. To elucidate a possible therapeutic role of allosteric inhibition of SERT, a drug that specifically targets the allosteric site is required. The purpose of this study was to find a compound having higher selectivity towards the S2 site. Experimental approach We performed a systematic structure-activity relationship study based on the scaffold of citalopram and the structurally closely related congener, talopram, which shows low-affinity S1 binding in SERT. The role of the four chemical substituents, which distinguish citalopram from talopram in conferring selectivity towards the S1 and S2 site, respectively, was assessed by determining the binding of 14 citalopram/talopram analogous to the S1 and S2 binding sites in SERT using membranes of COS7 cells transiently expressing SERT. Key results The structure-activity relationship study revealed that dimethyl citalopram possesses the highest affinity for the allosteric site relative to the S1 site in SERT and has approximately twofold selectivity for the allosteric site relative to the S1 site in SERT. Conclusions and implications The compound could be a useful lead for future synthesis of drugs with high affinity and high selectivity towards the allosteric binding site.

Abstract: Citalopram and talopram are structurally closely related, but they have very distinct pharmacological profiles as selective inhibitors of the serotonin and norepinephrine transporters, respectively. A systematic structure−activity relationship study was performed, in which each of the four positions distinguishing the two compounds were varied. The inhibitory potencies of the resulting 16 compounds were tested at both serotonin and norepinephrine transporters. This showed that particularly two of the four positions are determinants for the biological activity.